I'm wondering if one could solder a more conventional scsi connector to those pads ? The one SGI used is very difficult to find ...

There might be other alternatives to soldering. I've got a two-drop SCSI cable out of an IBM server that has what appears to be the same connector on one end <the other two connectors are the the standard 68-pin internal SCSI type>. The fuel-type end connected to the three drive hot-swap SCSI backplane in an IBM xSeries server. The FRU on the cable is 06P5849 - I googled up a few references, including this one on IBM's site <scroll down to the 'cable' section>: http://www-947.ibm.com/systems/support/ ... nd=5000020 That document is for an xSeries 205 - the ones I had <I think I've still got one or two in storage> were xSeries 220s, so the part might be used in more than one application <*and* be at least slightly more common than the Fuel part>.

The connector on the IBM backplane uses clips to secure the cable connection, but that shouldn't affect the connector on the cable. Here's a photo of the connector on the IBM backplane for comparison to the connector in jan-jaap's photo:

and here's a shot of either end of the IBM cable <it's 25.5 inches long>:

It's fairly straightforward to make cables like this, the connectors are IDC - Insulation Displacement - you just clamp the connector over the ribbon cable and it makes all the connections itself. But figure at least $7.00 per connector, plus the ribbon costs, so it's not usually cheap. I used to make my own custom SCSI cables just to get the lengths/connector spacing right.

dc_v01 wrote:It's fairly straightforward to make cables like this, the connectors are IDC - Insulation Displacement - you just clamp the connector over the ribbon cable and it makes all the connections itself.

What makes then somewhat difficult to source is the planar end of the Fuel cable uses the relatively uncommon female 68-pin micro-centronics connector. It should be available in IDC format <SGI and IBM had to get them somewhere>. Do you have a source that offers low-volume purchases?